Jennifer told me she went to the big new shopping plaza with her mom. It’s where her cousin lives. She’s best friends with her cousin, they’re the same age and their mothers are best friends, too. Well anyway, there’s a pet shop there and they both got a guinea pig. I guess their pigs are sisters, like mine. She invited me over to see her pig and I guess I’ll go tomorrow because she has organ practise after school today.
I told her that the reason I’ve got two pigs is because they get lonely when there’s just one of them, just like people. She said her mother said she could get one, not two, and anyway, she said, all the kids in the family will keep the little guy busy. I’m still glad I’ve got two. I know what it’s like to be lonely.
So after school I went over to Jane’s house, down the street. Jane and Brenda have spent a lot of time training their dog Cheeky, and is he ever smart now! He still pees, but I think we can overlook that, he gets so excited. But now he knows how to shake hands. He rolls over for dead and he’ll even do a funny little dance if you’ve got something to tempt him with.
Jane gave me some little doggy biscuits crumbled up to try making Cheeky dance myself, and he did it a few times for me, but he does it better for her. Sometimes I think it would be so much fun to have a dog or something, because you can play with a dog.
It’s different with the pigs, they don’t really do anything, like you can’t make them do anything. They just squeal and stuff, like for food. And even though they know me so well, they still run away and I have to catch them to pick them up. It’s so discouraging sometimes. Sometimes I feel that even my guinea pigs don’t like me.
Anyway, afterwards we fooled around in Jane’s bedroom. Her room is really nice. She’s got a four-poster bed and a frilly bedspread. It’s really great looking, kind of romantic, like what you see in decorating magazines. Mrs. Parker gave Jane some makeup that she doesn’t use anymore to fool around with, although she’s not supposed to wear it yet. It’s just for fooling with.
Well, Jane really knows how to put the stuff on because she’s fooled around with it so much, like sometimes she makes up Brenda’s face. She said that since I had shown her how to make stuff out of beads she thought it was only fair to show me how to use make-up. I didn’t know what Mom would think of that, but I thought; why not. It wouldn’t hurt. Besides, I thought I’d really like to know what I’d look like with all that glump on. So Jane made me all up and was it ever tickly.
“Hey, you look really goood Jennifer”, she said. But I think she just liked the way she put the stuff on me. I looked in the mirror and I didn’t even look like me.
“You really think so?” I asked. “I think I look kind of goofy. Like some of the kids in my class. Like some of them who wear too much stuff.”
“Oh, you don’t look goofy. It’s just you’re not used to it. You’ve got to get used to it. It really looks good on you. That green shadow really suits your brown hair because you’ve got red highlights in your hair. And the lipstick isn’t too bright, it’s just right. Maybe a little more mascara … hey, sit still, let me do it right!”
My face felt funny, like I was kind of afraid to smile or anything. It felt like I had so much glop on that if I smiled it would kind of crack. My face, that is. I looked so stiff, kind of, and not comfortable. I didn’t feel comfortable.
“Are you going to start wearing makeup to school, Jane?" I asked her. I was hoping she’d get tired of fooling around with me so maybe I could wash some of the stuff off.
“When I get to high school; maybe next year. My mom doesn’t want me to wear it yet. But she thinks I should get used to putting it on so I won’t make a big mess when I go to wear it all the time.” Boy, I hope she does a better job on herself than she’s doing on me.
“Isn’t that enough stuff already? I mean, there’s so much on me already, I don’t know if I really like it. It’s okay, I guess. Think it’s all right if I wash it off now? I don’t think my mom’ll be happy to see me wearing it.”
“Whyn’t you keep it on while you’re over here? Then you can wash it off just before you leave. Just a minute, Jennifer ... while I’m doing you face, I might as well do your hair, too.”
So then she started to comb my hair and brush it and put pins in it and stuff. I never put anything in my hair, that’s why it’s always full of knots. But I want to wear my hair loose, and it’s not my fault if it doesn’t lie loose and straight. Jane wouldn’t let me see what she was doing until she was finished, and then she let me look and boy, I couldn’t believe it.
“Hey, that’s me? I don’t believe it! That’s really nice Jane, I look like a different person.”
“I thought you’d like it. I’m pretty good, hey? I’m planning to be a beautician when I go out to work eventually. I just have a natural flair for it. My mom says I’ll be a beautician over her dead body. She thinks I’ll get over it. She says she’d rather I was a lawyer, or a doctor or something.”
“You get that from your mother too? What I’d like to know is, if they’re so keen on us having opportunities they haven't had, like they say, and they want us to be something we want to be, that’ll make us happy, like they say, how come they pick what they want us to do?”
“I don’t know either. We have some real hassles over that, but when I get old enough to go ahead and do what I want, I’m sure Mom won’t mind. Brenda’s a good kid and she’ll always do what Mom wants, so that’s a fifty percent score for Mom, anyhow.”
“I really like what you did with my hair, Jane. I’m not so super-keen on the face. That makeup feels stiff. But I like my hair just fine. If only I weren’t so fat!”
“Oh, come on, you’re not fat. You’ve just got a few pounds to lose, that’s all.”
“Were you ever fat? You or Brenda?”
“No. But honest, Jennifer, you’re not fat at all. Fat is like Martha Kent or Donna whatshername, who you go around with at school.”
“Yeah, Mom says I’m not fat either. She says she was like me and look at her now, she’s not fat. She says I’ll lose my baby fat - that’s what she calls it. But it’s different when you’re just talking to someone else who’s got the problem and when you’re the one who’s fat.”
“Seems to me you used to be fatter - oh, I mean heavier, before - than you are now. See, you’re already losing weight.”
“It’s hardly just a little bit. Who can wait around for all that extra flab to go? I mean, how old am I supposed to be before that baby fat goes? If it’s going to, that is. I don’t even know if it will.”
Jane’s real nice. She never says something mean about anyone. And because I was so upset about how I am, she goes overboard telling me how nice I am. Nice looking, I mean. But I know it’s not so, and I think it’s very generous of her. Maybe she’s like that because her and Brenda are so cute with their little noses and red hair and nice shapes. I wonder, is it easier to be nice when you’re nice-looking, than when you’re not?
I wonder sometimes if I’m crabby at home because I’m the only one who’s fat and like that? But then I remember about Sally and she’s sure not fat, so I guess it’s not that.
“Jane, do you get depressed sometimes?”
“Sometimes I do. Why?”
“Seems I do a lot, now. My mom says it’s my age, adolescence and all that”
“Yeah, my mom says things like that, too. She says it’s my emerging womanhood that confuses me phys … now how does that go … psychologically and physically”.
“I guess what they mean is that we’re getting older and don’t listen to them so well anymore, and it’s their way of saying it’s all right. Sometimes I feel like crying, though, and I don’t know why. Do you ever?”
“Yep, sometimes. But then I get over it and there’s always so much going on that if I mope around I’m sure to miss something and I don’t want to, so I don’t. Mope, I mean.”
Jane seems so much surer of herself than me, I think. Maybe it’s because her mother doesn’t always kind of hover over her like my mom does. And her mom’s always dressed so nice, and like that. They go out a lot, her parents, and stuff like that. It’s funny how sometimes I feel older than some of my friends, and I’m able to make them feel better. But somehow, when I’m around Jane she seems older and seems to know more kind of, and she makes me feel better. Maybe it’s because she’s a little older than me too, but I don’t think that’s it.
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